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fall leaves

Blog, Faith, Family, Fitness, Marriage, Parenting, prayer, Time Management

Fall’s glorious colored leaves: The beautiful lesson of letting go

fall tree's orange leaves

fall tree’s glorious orange leaves

Good morning (or afternoon, or night, depending on where you are right now!). Today I’ve been awake since 3 a.m. Insomnia is no stranger to me; I’ve been battling it occasionally for several years now.

Melatonin helps. Melatonin is a natural hormone made by your body’s pineal gland, a pea-size gland located just above the middle of your brain. When the sun goes down and light turns to darkness, the pineal is “turned on” and your body produces melatonin, released into the blood. This usually happens around 9 p.m. and you start feeling less alert and sleepy. 

Sleepy man. Source: platinumtraininginstitute.com

Sleepy man.
Source: platinumtraininginstitute.com

Melatonin levels stay elevated about 12 hours through the night. After sunrise, they fall back to low daytime levels by about 9 a.m. Some people don’t produce enough Melatonin.

Taking Melatonin works sometimes to help me fall and/or stay asleep. You can get the capsules at Walmart or on Amazon. Taking Melatonin doesn’t work for everyone. It even gives my friend Stephanie nightmares! But you can try it to see if it helps you sleep. (DISCLAIMER: Check with your doctor first if you have any health issues or you’re on any medication!)

I didn’t take any last night. I fell asleep and when I awoke at 3 a.m., I tried what I usually do when I have insomnia: pray. I did this for about an hour. I prayed for my family and myself. 

Asian woman praying

Asian woman praying

Praying is at least doing something good and useful if you have insomnia. Sometimes I hate nighttime, because if you do wake up, there’s not a lot to do and I really dislike being unproductive (and laying there, staring at the ceiling!). Restaurants and stores are closed, too. It’s boring!

When I still couldn’t sleep after that and felt “bright eyed and bushy-tailed“, I decided to get up, dress (meaning throwing a comfy sweat shirt over my black yoga pants and putting on sneakers), and drove to get a cuppa’ caffeine. Usually that is my morning coffee, but today a cold Dr. Pepper (with chocolate doughnuts) just sounded good!

Dr. Pepper and doughnuts

Dr. Pepper and doughnuts

It’s rare that I drink a soda any more (I quit drinking Coke years ago), but not as rare for me to eat doughnuts. I’m working on conquering sugar, just not this morning! Not the breakfast of champions and so not how I want to set the tone for the new year. Please pray for my self-discipline, would you? I know I have to make the choice, daily!

Yesterday I worked on my 2020 Vision and my Personal and Business Goals for 2020. I got this workbook in Diane Cunningham’s free webinar, promoting her Life Change Club. Have you started writing down your vision and goals for the coming year?

Vision 2020

Vision 2020

90 Day Business Goals

90 Day Business Goals

I’m so happy that I completed Diane’s workbook and set my 2020 Vision and Goals. One of my personal goals is about praying for our grown children and our grandchildren, but learning to let go. To trust God. God loves our kids even more than I do!

Ray and I with our 3 beautiful daughters, Heather, Leah, & Eden

Ray and I with our 3 beautiful daughters, Heather, Leah, & Eden

I’m a recovering control freak, and I’ve been working on this one, letting go and letting God, for literally years. It’s so hard. But if I don’t let our kids go, they’ll never mature and grow. They’ll never learn to fly, and to soar.

eagle soaring

eagle soaring

A great verse to pray over your children and grandchildren is Isaiah 40:31.

Our beautiful, precious granddaughters Violet & Annabelle

Our beautiful, precious granddaughters Violet & Annabelle

Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

I love this quote about Autumn. It is so timely and appropriate right now with me facing empty nest, learning to let my grown kids go, and fall’s gloriously colored leaves here in Missouri. “Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.”

Autumn

Autumn

tree with yellow leaves

tree with yellow leaves

red, yellow, & orange leaf

red, yellow, & orange leaf

To cope with empty nest (I really love and miss my kids!), I’m focusing on cleaning, organizing, decluttering, and purging. Also for 2020, I’m concentrating on my health (despite this morning’s junk food breakfast!) and on my business and personal goals, such as writing my first children’s book. It is about my and our daughter Leah’s black cats Natalya and Jax becoming “friends.”

Jax and Natalya

Jax and Natalya

I just hired the illustrator for this book to draw the pictures inside the book this week and I’m so excited and happy! She does beautiful work!

To be first to hear about my children’s book’s release as an eBook on Amazon, be sure to sign up as a subscriber to my newsletter (ezine) at the top of the page on the right hand side.

freedom

freedom

What do you need to let go of this coming new year 2020?

  • Your grown children;
  • Your spouse;
  • Your excess weight;
  • Anger, depression;
  • Fear, worry and stress;
  • Control;
  • Broken dreams;
  • Forgiving someone;
  • A sin you committed in the past;
  • Excuses;
  • Laziness;
  • Sugar or carb addiction;
  • Alcohol and/or drugs;
  • A toxic relationship;
  • Self-doubt;
  • Poverty mindset or other mindsets hindering your success;
  • ____________________ (you name it).
Blog, Faith

Drinking in fall

Leaf bliss

“Autumn…the year’s last loveliest smile.”– William Cullen Bryant, Indian Summer

This afternoon after my walk at the track, I was going to come home and record a podcast. I may still do that, but I just couldn’t at that moment. I had to go outside. Right now, I am drinking in fall, savoring every moment of looking at the beautiful, glorious, colored leaves, God’s amazing art.

I want to stop winter, stop time, and shout to the world, “Look at how gorgeous this is! Look at what God our Creator has done!” 

Contrast of green, yellow, gold, and red leaves with the blue sky and green grass

Contrast of green, yellow, gold, and red leaves with the blue sky and green grass

There is something about this season I’m wanting to hold onto more than ever. I can’t put my finger on it, but I want to stay in this moment, hug it like a baby and never let go.

I don’t know if it’s a spirit of dread and fear, if something terrible is about to happen, and I just have a sixth sense about it, or if God is just somehow making me somehow acutely aware of how great He is and I just now noticed it in my everyday, scurried, distracted life. 

coffee on back steps

coffee on back steps

I went outside and sat on our back steps, drinking my creamy coffee in my Casey’s brown cup (refills for just 75 cents), and it was like I was completely dehydrated and someone gave me a bucket of cold, artesian spring water. I couldn’t get enough of the glory of God, looking at it all. Pictures can’t convey how gorgeous God’s masterpieces are. 

backyard filled with leaves

backyard filled with leaves

I looked at the pile of brown leaves on the emerald-green grass, and wanted to just go jump in them like I did as a child when our dad made us rake the huge yard. We’d rake awhile, putting the leaves into huge piles that resembled mountains, and then jump in them, screaming with glee. Sometimes daddy would come outside and order us to “stop fooling around,” and get to work again. He grew up as a farmer’s son, and laziness is a cardinal sin to farmers. 

Instead, I walked on the leaves today, delighting in the crunch-crunch sound underneath my short, black boots. (Boots are another fun thing about fall!). 

The contrast of the orange, yellow, red, and green leaves against the blue sky is so vivid. I’m not an artist like our daughter Leah is, but sights like this would awaken the artist in anyone. I had to grab Leah’s Nikon camera and snap some shots. 

blue sky-orange leaves

blue sky-orange leaves

 

Contrast of green and yellow leaves against blue sky

Contrast of green and yellow leaves against blue sky

Each leaf, like each person, is beautiful and unique.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.”–Psalm 139:14-16, MSG

Red-yellow leaf

Red-yellow leaf

 

fall leaves

fall leaves

God’s beautiful collage: fall colored leaves.

God's collage: fall colored leaves

God’s collage: fall colored leaves

I snapped a pic of myself, even though it’s not a very flattering shot. But I was happy! I had just come back from my walk/jog at the track and was in Ray’s olive-green, light-weight jacket. 

Me in fall

Me in fall

Here’s a better “fall” pic of me in my new, soft brown sweater and scarf. Another wonderful thing about autumn!

Beth Jones

Beth Jones

the sun today

the sun today

I’m drinking in fall, savoring each delicious moment. What is your favorite thing about fall? I love the quote below. So true. Today, take time to just sit and revel in the exquisite changes of this season God has so graciously given you and me. Don’t let it pass you by without noticing its beauty, and thanking Him for it.

leaves turning quote